End of League Season Round Up

So.... the last round of league games for this 2003/4 season.  We started almost exactly 6 months ago and what has been memorable?  Well, first you have to look at the outstanding performance from Fifth Finger.  For the leading team of our league over recent years this has been an 'annus mirabilis' even by their standards.  Yet in the Finger's one slip up of the campaign, good old Ethel, the most mercurial of performers, pulled off a famous victory to show that even the best are fallible.   Meanwhile in the chasing pack, solid St Caths beat off some rising stars to keep their runners up spot safe.  Towards the nether reaches reviving X-Pats had a pretty good run of results whilst Albert Park scared a few horses but settled down to bask in the reputation of the best setters of the season (closely followed by Gerry H).  My own team, the Opsimaths, were 'middle for diddle' as per usual but managed to feature in both of the tied matches of the year.  So, if it's excitement you want, we're your team.

Perhaps the biggest changes have been in the papers.  Adventurous, infuriating, brilliant - just some of the adjectives that come to mind.  Even if on occasions it felt like being in Round Britain Quiz, so cryptically worded were the questions, and so long-winded the discussions over the answers, it has rarely been dull.  As a result some truly imaginative formats have been tried to the delight of all (well, most) of us.  And not once have we had the perennial 'What is the capital of Albania?'  So, well done Fifth Finger, but for me the heroes have been the setters, week after week, toiling to find new ways of keeping us entertained and on our toes.

I'll try and put together some more thoughts on the season at the 'End of Season' do at the Albert Club at the beginning of June - see you there!!

As it's the the end of the league season I am showing the final league table below alongside last year's so that you can see at a glance whether you're up, down or just stuck in a rut: 

Results & Match Reports

• Fifth Finger finished a memorable league campaign with a narrow victory over Stumped at the Cricket Club.  Kieran writes:

"Good paper.  Close all the way through and all results possible coming to the last pair.

Not quite as easy as Dummy's earlier effort and probably better for that.

 Question of the week has to be the Battle of the River Plate connection, even though Barry, our military historian, picked it and attributed it to the Falklands War.   Stumped then got the right war but sadly went for the Bismarck rather than the Graf Spee.  Stll a good question."

• St Caths closed with a win away at Hough End over Snoopy's - for much of the season their rivals for second spot.  Dave Blythe writes:

"In a close game last night, St Cath's overcame the considerable handicap of having to drink keg Boddies (isn't it against league rules to play in a home venue with no proper beer?), to beat Snoopy's Friends.  It was close for 7 rounds, but we finished the league season in style by picking up a clean sweep of four 2s in the final round. The quiz was generally judged to be pretty good, although there were perhaps too many film questions.  We will be taking on the same opposition at home in the cup next week, when this result will count for nothing, as by then the form book will of course have been thrown out of the window." 

• X-Pats romped to a convincing win at home against Ethel Rodin

• The Brains defeated Albert Park in a comparatively low-scoring game at the Oak.  With his microphone still switched on Gerry recorded these post match remarks:

"Good game, good game. Nice to see ya. To see ya nice.

I gather the Opsimaths are playing tonight so I'd better not pass judgement on the questions. just gen up a bit on your Serbo-Croatian irregular verbs and Newton's third law of thermal underwear and you should scrape a pass.

No epistle from Fr. M. this week as he has gone down to London to apply for Fr. Ranieri's job.  He is of course very adept at making a pig's ear out of things so he stands a good chance of getting this lucrative sinecure.  Brother Marcel is kinda hoping that they give the job to Fr. Atkinson and has volunteered to show him where best to insert his open mike for maximum effect.  But let's not go there."

• Electric Pigs finished in fine style beating the Albert in the Fletcher Moss derby and thus completed a respectable season sitting bang in mid-table

• Keen to be the very last league players of the season the Opsimaths persuaded the History Men to delay the fixture until Thursday.  Little good it did us as the Historians romped home with the remarkably high score of 52 (second highest of the season behind Fifth Finger's 53 against Stumped)

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's setter was the Dummy that we know and love as Gerry Hennessy.  As you can see from the comments above and from the scores it was a high-scoring and popular bingo-style quiz rivalling his excellent efforts when he dummied at the end of the first half of the season.  In our game at the Red there was only a single question that didn't get answered by either team.  There were a couple of slight quibbles received.  One from Roz who makes a good point about the slightly easier papers not providing the scope (and thus excitement) for a trailing team to make a dramatic recovery at the death.  Roz writes:

"The general opinion was that the paper was really too easy.  Once we were behind, it was extremely difficult to catch up.  If no one a team knew the answer, you could guarantee that the other team did (only 3 questions went unanswered).  Obviously our team (as is our wont), seem to be very good at picking questions to which we do not know the answers when it comes to choosing a Bingo number! 

If Gerry was to be criticised, there were a great number of film, pop, and TV questions."

The other comment was a correction of the cup final dates from X-Pat, Robert (Q53).  Apparently Burnley won the cup in 1914 not 1911 (when Blackburn won it).  So there!!

The average aggregate score this week was 79.2.  Actual aggregates around the games varied from a massive 86 (History Men/Opsimaths) to 69 (Brains/Albert Park).

The Question of the Week

Both 'Finger' Kieran and 'Pig' Andrew have voted for Q22 as Question of the Week.  Despite requiring a brief history of the Battle of the Atlantic as its answer it was a real cracker (congrats to Nick Mansfield from the Opsimaths who got it almost spot on - he just got Hector confused with Achilles).  The full Question 22 was:

Connect an important city in the West Country of England, a hero in the Trojan War ultimately killed by Paris and another hero of the Trojan War whose name was given to a Dutch football club?

(to see the answer to this and all the other questions click here.)

Chatterbox

T'Cup

Straight into the cup.  Next week sees Round One in which nobody gets sent to the bench.   The worst you can do is get yourself relegated to the Plate where (with a bit of luck) Fingers are not to be encountered.

To get the basic Cup facts (like who plays whom - and who is setting when) see the fixtures page.

End of Season

I have now booked the Albert Club for the evening of Wednesday June 9th to hold our Grand End of Season Quiz and Presentation event.  As far as I can tell there are no likely clashing events (like European Cup Finals) so all please get this date in your diaries!!

Thursdays?

You may recall that we had a vote at the end of last season on changing from Wednesday to Thursday evenings as our regular match day.  It was a close run thing but Wednesdays just won the vote.  Chatting to the teams at the Oak a few weeks ago there was a feeling that the groundswell for Thursdays has increased and that we need to have another vote.  Can we please use the website as a sounding board for this issue?  I'll publish any feedback I get.

Feedback 1:

St Caths and X-Pats discussed this issue after their recent match and were firmly in favour of sticking to Wednesdays.

Feedback 2:

Copland has come back saying that Stumped also vote strongly against switching to Thursdays.

Feedback 3:

Mary O'Brien (Albert) favours keeping to Wednesday - at least until we've had a chance to debate the issue again at this season's gala night.

Feedback 4:

Ethel Rodin are finding Wednesdays at the Red Lion almost impossible to negotiate, what with wide- screens and football at every turn.  They would favour moving to Thursdays.

Feedback 5:

On balance the Fingers wish to stick with Wednesdays.